Labour women candidates expected to be elected in record numbers The Guardian The Labour party is on track for record numbers of women to win seats in Westminster and Brussels in forthcoming elections, party data shows. The findings will put more pressure on Conservatives after MP Anne McIntosh was deselected by her local association this month and announcements from three new Tory women MPs that they will step down next year.

More than half of Labour’s parliamentary candidates selected in 106 key target seats in next year’s general election are women. Of the 57 chosen, 51 were from all-women shortlists. More than two in five Labour candidates selected are female, while half the candidates the party is fielding in the European elections in May are women. By contrast, fewer than three in 10 parliamentary candidates selected by the Conservative Party so far are women. One-third of its MEP candidates are female and just 27% of those candidates ranked first or second place on regional lists are women.

Caroline Spelman, a former environment secretary, said nobody could argue with a 50:50 gender split for candidates, and the party should not rule out the possibility of all-female shortlists.

At the 2010 election, Cameron introduced an “A-list” of priority candidates that was roughly equally split between men and women. The number of female Conservative MPs rose from 17 to 48. However, the system was dropped after the last election, and fewer than three in 10 candidates selected to stand in 2015 are women.

The Ukip leader said female candidates would “dominate election coverage” for the party over the next four months as a direct result of his leadership.

“Nobody has done more in Ukip to promote women than I have,” he said. “When you get the results from European elections you’ll be astonished to see as many women as men in the top slots in Ukip, things have changed.”

The Ukip leader told BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour on Friday: “The women are slowly but surely taking over Ukip.”

Nick Clegg’s rivals for the Lib Dems leadership told to rev up The Independent …One long-serving MP said that should the Lib Dems’ general election result prove as disastrous as current forecasts suggest, Mr Farron would have built up a huge advantage over potential rivals. These could also include International Development minister Lynne Featherstone, but, like the other six female Lib Dem MPs, she faces a struggle to hold on to her seat.

“People are beginning to say that the contenders need to start their preparations,” said a party source. “There’s been the odd observation on this made in the bars and tea rooms of Parliament. Davey, Carmichael, Alexander and Featherstone are all inside Clegg’s government circle, so there’s a real risk if they do anything overt. Farron is an outsider with a reasonably prickly relationship with Clegg so has more freedom and space.

Eleanor Blackburn, 34, who is originally from Garswood, is a council officer in Warrington where she is partnership project manager.

She follows St Helens-born Catherine McDonald, a Labour councillor in Southwark in London, in announcing her intention to put her name forward to seek the party’s nomination for the St Helens South and Whiston ward.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said women were in the “eye of the storm” over the coalition’s austerity drive.

He told the union’s women’s conference in Brighton: “It will take more than a pair of wellies to protect David Cameron and his party from the voter backlash from women everywhere.”

Women made up two thirds of the public services workforce, relied on the services most and cared for the elderly. But they have been hit by cuts to council budgets, affecting the work of home carers and women’s refuges, he said.

The 5050 Group is campaigning to encourage and support more women in politics and public life. The new gender quota legislation, which will ensure more women candidates, does not take effect until the next general election.

However, the impact of the legislation is beginning to be felt. Across the country so far, almost 23% of all local election candidates are women; this compares with 17% five years ago in 2009.

FG anger over ‘chauvinistic’ system Irish IndependentFINE Gael TDs and senators have slammed the ongoing “chauvinistic” ethos of Leinster House. The scathing comments come amid growing concern within Fine Gael over the difficulties the party is experiencing in attracting sufficient women candidates for the local and European elections. Fine Gael sources noted the party “increasingly looks likes we are just a party for old men”.

However, when it comes to the local elections, with over 90pc of Fine Gael conventions concluded, just 21.2pc of the 411 Fine Gael candidates are female.

By contrast, their Coalition colleagues in Labour already have 43 female candidates out of 140 council aspirants and will comfortably exceed the quota.

The shortfall of female representation is deeply embarrassing for Fine Gael as the party battles a growing image problem on the gender front.

Published by psawomenpolitics

The UK Political Studies Association Women and Politics Specialist Group. Resource for researchers working on women and/or gender and for women in the PSA. The 2014 Specialist Group of the Year.
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